


Of Tuna Sandwiches and Roasted Marshmallows.

by phizzwizards



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 22:05:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzwizards/pseuds/phizzwizards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. In which Dustin decides that it's time for Mark to make his move, Mark disagrees, Eduardo is oblivious, Chris just wants everyone to get into college, and they all question the accuracy of the food pyramid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Tuna Sandwiches and Roasted Marshmallows.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for day four of TSN Week on Tumblr. Rewrites very sarcastically overseen by [Rose.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose)

Mark had forgotten all about Dustin’s stupid tradition.

Mark had had a lot to deal with recently between finals and his mom threatening to get him a summer job at the toy store where Dustin worked. Not to mention his dad constantly trying to steer all of their conversations towards the subject of girls, boys, or car exhaust pipes. As a result, Dustin’s would-be end of year tradition was not particularly high on Mark’s list of concerns.

Sophomore year, for Mark, would have been pretty much the same as freshmen year if it hadn’t been for two exceptions, both of which had managed to change almost everything else.

The first exception was that Chris had become obsessed with their college applications. Had it been up to him, Mark probably wouldn’t have even been thinking about college yet, and if left to his own devices Dustin probably wouldn’t have ended up applying until the last possible second. Chris however had been like a man possessed ever since he had come back from visiting his cousins in North Carolina over the summer and, in his own words, ‘seen what it was like to not have been prepared in high school’. Somehow, in Chris’s regime of practice tests and volunteer work, Mark had ended up rejoining the fencing team, which he had previously quit in middle school, and had almost been elected captain. He had eventually managed to talk them out of it and would have quit again after that but Chris had lectured him for half an hour about the importance of extracurricular activities and Mark had decided that his life would probably be easier if he just stayed on the team.

The other exception was Eduardo.

Eduardo had moved to Palo Alto at the beginning of the school year and the high school was so small that by the end of second period on his first day everyone already knew who he was. Mark still wasn’t entirely sure how Eduardo had come to sit with them at lunch on that first day, especially since Christy Lee had been hovering around him like a vulture all through the morning. But Eduardo had laughed at Dustin’s jokes and Chris had about died from happiness when he realised that Eduardo was a junior and therefore even further into the college application process than they were. He had seemed intelligent too, right from that first day, and he hadn’t been insulted when Mark said the wrong thing. He also had a slightly weird, genuine fascination with weather patterns that Mark appreciated for some reason.

By the second day of the school year Eduardo had a Dustin-approved nickname, Wardo, and a Chris-approved study timetable, that he would probably ignore just like Mark and Dustin did.

By the second week of the school year Mark had a crush on him.

Not that Mark had fully realised he had a crush on Eduardo, not until he had seen Eduardo kissing Christy at Alice’s Christmas party and Dustin had very slowly explained that this particular human emotion that Mark was currently feeling was called jealousy before barfing all over Mark’s shoes. After that Mark had been sure that things would get awkward but really nothing changed at all except that a few things made sense now, like why his brief attempt at dating Erica Albright had gone so badly and why his parents had started insisting that he keep his bedroom door open when he was in there with anyone, even Dustin or Chris, whereas before that rule had only applied to girls. He had asked Chris, a few weeks after the party, if everyone knew about his crush on Eduardo other than himself. Chris had given Mark the same look he had at the beginning of the year, when Mark had asked if coding counted as an extracurricular activity, and said that yes, he was pretty sure everyone other than Eduardo, Mark, and possible Christy, knew about Mark’s crush on Eduardo.

All in all it had been a busy year and towards the end of it Chris had had them all studying during every second of their free time. Any evening that Mark managed to get away from Chris’s house before midnight would then be spent dealing with his parents, who seemed to have suddenly decided that they wanted a normal teenager who went on dates rather than one who spent most of his time coding in his room. The only plus side was that by the end of the year he’d found himself too busy most days to worry about his crush on Eduardo at all.

Basically sophomore year had tired Mark out. So when Dustin came bounding over to their lunch table on the last day of school, with Chris trailing behind him, and demanded to know if Mark was all set for the tradition, it had taken Mark a moment to figure out what the hell Dustin was talking about.

“What tradition?”

Dustin’s face fell. It might have been comical if Mark wasn’t so tired. “The last day of school tradition!”

Mark still had no idea.

“What is it?” Eduardo asked, saving Mark from Dustin’s kicked puppy look.

“Every year, after the last day of school, we go to the beach and-“

“Twice,” Mark interrupted, finally catching up to what Dustin was talking about. “We did that last year and the year before, twice does not make it a tradition.” Eduardo laughed and passed Mark one of the sandwiches in his lunchbox.

Eduardo woke up early every morning so that he could help his mother make his packed lunch. Mark always spent his lunch money on mountain dew and red vines. Mark didn’t remember when exactly Eduardo had started bringing an extra sandwich for him every day but he had to admit that he was pretty pleased about it, and he definitely remembered the day that he had mentioned that tuna sandwiches were his favourite and the two weeks afterwards when he and Eduardo had eaten tuna sandwiches every single day.

Sometimes, during the rare few seconds that he actually got to himself where he wasn’t coding anything, Mark would let himself think about whether the tuna sandwiches had meant anything. Eduardo did a lot of things like that, and occasionally Mark would wonder whether they might be a sign that Eduardo maybe liked Mark in the same way that he liked Eduardo. Mostly though Mark tried to keep his mind away from that sort of territory because he was pretty sure that Eduardo strictly liked girls, and even if he didn’t Mark definitely did not have time for a boyfriend between everything else he had going on. To be honest, Mark had barely even had time to figure out whether he strictly liked boys or not. Not that it particularly mattered to him. Mark didn’t like boys  _or_  girls, he liked Eduardo, but even thinking that sort of thing made Mark feel stupid and embarrassed so he tried not to do it too often.

“Twice is totally a tradition, right Wardo?”

“I think maybe it has to be at least three times for it to be a tradition,” Eduardo said, diplomatic as always.

“Well then after today it will be a tradition.” Dustin grinned and stole half of Mark’s sandwich.

Eduardo clicked his tongue and swatted at Dustin’s hand. “You have lunch.”

“So would Mark if he recognised any part of the food pyramid that isn’t sugar.”

“I never understood why they call it the food pyramid,” Mark said. “It’s never actually a pyramid in any of the pictures, it’s always just a triangle.”

Eduardo laughed loudly, tipping his whole head back and fully exposing his long neck. Mark tried not to look.

“Why are we talking about food pyramids?” Dustin asked, starting to actually eat his own food now instead of Mark’s.

“You brought it up,” Chris said.

“Whatever, are you ready for the tradition or not?”

Mark shrugged. “I’ll have to call my mom, I completely forgot about it.”

“Fine, good.” Dustin gestured wildly with his fork. “Go and call your mom, you too Wardo.”

“I still don’t know what I’m calling her about,” Eduardo reminded them. “All I got was that you go to the beach.”

“We go to the beach, burn marshmallows, and listen to Dustin’s crappy music until the sun sets. Then we go home.”

“Christopher you are ruining the magic. It’s a beautiful thing, Wardo. Chris gets sentimental about finals, I remember all of the beautiful girls whose hearts I have broken during the previous school year, even Mark gets misty eyed.”

“You haven’t even been on one date this year,” Mark said before Eduardo could ask about the ‘misty eyed’ comment.

“It’s not about facts, it’s about poetry,” Dustin argued.

“Just as long as you admit that the facts are that you haven’t been on a single date this entire year,” Chris said.

Dustin stabbed Chris’s arm with his tiny plastic fork. “It’s metaphorical!”

“Well it sounds like fun.” Eduardo laughed and slipped out from the table. “I’ll just go and call my mom.”

Mark stood up to go and do the same but Dustin reached out and pulled on his sleeve so hard that he crashed right back down onto his hard plastic chair.

“What?” He asked, pulling his sleeve back out of Dustin’s grip.

“You can call your mom later, she won’t mind. We’ve made an executive decision, Marky-Mark.” It was never a good sign when Dustin called him ‘Marky-Mark’.

“I had nothing to do with it,” Chris added. That was an even worse sign.

Dustin ploughed straight on as though Chris had never spoken. “We’ve decided that tonight, when we’re all feeling nostalgic and full of glorious marshmallows, watching the sun set over the glistening sea, listening to the sound of the waves as they lap against the soft, white sand-“

“Is there a point in here somewhere?” Mark asked. He was still sore about Dustin pulling him down like that. Mark did not appreciate being manhandled.

“You’ve gotta make a move on Wardo. Tonight.”

“What the fuck?” Mark replied, leaning in across the table.

“Mark, I know you don’t like talking about it but come on, you’ve been pining over him all year.”

“I do not pine,” Mark protested. This really was getting out of line. Mark barely even allowed himself to think about Eduardo like that, he certainly did not pine.

“You still like him though, don’t you?” Chris asked.

“What does it matter? Why are we even talking about this?”

“Because you never talk about it!” From the look on Dustin’s face Mark guessed that this was supposed to make sense but it really didn’t. “It’s not normal.”

“Just because I don’t let it control my life-“

“You don’t let it enter your life,” Chris interrupted. “It’s kind of driving us nuts here, Mark.”

Mark looked between his two friends. They didn’t get it. Eduardo was his best friend. Probably that was stupid since he had known both Chris and Dustin for practically his entire life and Eduardo for less than a year, but it was true. Everyone joked about Mark being a robot and not feeling emotions like everyone else but that wasn’t true. He felt the emotions just like they did, but he didn’t let them interfere with the bigger picture. Yes he liked Eduardo, and yes he sometimes thought about Eduardo in ways that would probably make a blush creep in under Eduardo’s tanned skin if he knew about them, and yes thinking about Eduardo blushing usually led to more of the other thoughts. But he wasn’t going to risk his friendship with Eduardo unless he was sure that the outcome would be preferable to what they had now.

“I just don’t-“

“If you kiss him he will put his hand in your pants,” Dustin said, his expression deadly serious. Chris rolled his eyes. “I guarantee.”

“We are not talking about this anymore,” Mark said.

“Well I am not spending the next year dealing with the little show you two have going on right now so make your move Zuckerberg, before I am forced to make it for you.”

Mark didn’t even want to think about what Dustin meant by that.

—

After school they all piled into Dustin’s crappy old sedan and sang along obnoxiously loudly to whatever terrible song was playing on the radio as Dustin drove them to the beach. Somehow Chris had ended up in the front seat even though Mark had definitely called shotgun and Mark had been forced to spend the entire short trip to the beach avoiding Eduardo’s gaze and pretending that he couldn’t hear him over the music whenever Eduardo asked him a question.

This was the first time in their short friendship that Mark had ever felt awkward around Eduardo and he couldn’t wait to get out of the car and punch Dustin for doing this to him.

However, when they did eventually all stumble out of Dustin’s car, and Dustin immediately kicked his shoes off and ran straight towards the ocean, screaming, with his arms outstretched and his feet slipping and sliding through the sand, before throwing himself into the waves, even Mark smiled.

By the time Dustin made it back up to the beach, dripping wet and shivering, Chris and Eduardo had already set up the blankets that Dustin had stashed in the trunk of the car.

“We need a fire,” he said, his teeth chattering, as Chris wrapped a towel around his shoulders.

“I’ll go find some driftwood,” Mark offered, seeing his opportunity to get away from Eduardo for five minutes and sort his head out.

“Great.” Chris smiled and nudged Eduardo with his foot. “Wardo can go with you.”

Dustin looked delighted as Eduardo stood up and brushed sand from his trousers. Mark glared at Chris who simply shrugged in reply and steered Dustin towards the very edge of one of the blankets.

“Sure.” Eduardo tapped Mark on the shoulder and smiled down at him as he passed. Mark started to make notes of all of the different ways in which he could ruin Chris and Dustin’s lives.

“So,” Eduardo said when they had walked far enough away that they could no longer hear Dustin complaining about how cold he was. “Do you have any big plans for the summer?”

“Not really. Mom wants me to work at the toy shop where Dustin works but I don’t think the monkey outfit is really ‘me’.” Mark kicked at the sand under his feet and thought that he probably should have taken his flip-flops off. He had enough trouble being graceful as it was and the shoes were not helping. “What about you?”

Eduardo sighed and, clichéd as it was, Mark couldn’t help thinking that it sounded like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “My father wants me to intern with him but I don’t think mãe really wants me to.” Mark looked up at Eduardo for just a split-second, just to see if Eduardo looked as miserable as he sounded. He did. Mark knew all about Eduardo’s relationship with his father because Eduardo was kind of a talker when he got drunk and usually Mark was the one who ended up listening to him.

“What do you want?” Mark asked.

Eduardo stopped for a second, looking out at the ocean. Mark stopped too and followed his gaze.

“I don’t know,” Eduardo admitted. “I don’t even know where I want to go to college.”

“Don’t let Chris hear you say that.”

Eduardo laughed. It was a small laugh, not the one where he would throw his head back, this laugh was mostly in the way that his eyes crinkled as he looked at Mark. Mark tried not to think too hard about the fact that he knew Eduardo’s different laughs.

“I want this,” Eduardo said, including the entire landscape in a wide, sweeping hand gesture. “I want to spend the entire summer watching Dustin scream at the ocean, and listening to Chris talk about all of the finals that he failed and what clubs he’s going to join next year, and collecting driftwood with you… even if you are being weirder than usual today.”

Mark knew that he should have picked up on the last sentence, but it sounded too much like a conversation that would change things. “I want that too,” he said instead. 

Eduardo looked at Mark for a long time. Mark looked at the ocean and tried very hard not to think about the way that Eduardo was looking at him. Sometimes Eduardo would look at him as though Mark was a particularly complicated puzzle that he had no chance of ever figuring out. Mark was never quite sure how that made him feel.

“Come on,” Eduardo said at last, “I want some of these burnt marshmallows I was promised.”

—

Later on in the evening, when the marshmallows had all been eaten, and Chris had almost set fire to his own sleeve, Dustin went back to the car and turned on the radio, leaving the doors open so that they could hear the quiet music, and the four friends all sat back to watch the sun set. The conversation became muted and sentimental, just as Dustin had predicted it would, and they talked about the year they had had and how much had changed and how much would continue to change.

“You’ll be a senior next year,” Chris said, turning to Eduardo. Eduardo nodded stiffly.

“Yeah.”

“Are you excited about getting out of high school?” Dustin asked.

“I guess.” Eduardo shrugged. A thought suddenly occurred to Mark and before he could really think about it, he had said it out loud.

“You’re not going to prom?”

All three of the others turned to look at him.

“Since when do you give a crap about prom?” Dustin laughed.

Mark shrugged. “I don’t.”

“Then why’d you ask about it?”

“I just thought of it, that’s all.”

“Yeah but come on Mark, the prom-“

“Shut up, Dustin.” Chris kicked Dustin in the shin and he immediately stopped talking in favour of staring at Chris dramatically.

“There wasn’t anyone I wanted to take,” Eduardo said.

“I thought you kind of liked Christy?” Mark asked. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was asking. Maybe, he thought, Dustin was right, about the sun and the sea and whatever the hell else he’d been talking about earlier.

“Christy’s insane.” Eduardo turned to Mark and fixed him with a look that made it plain that he really meant it. “When I told her that I just wanted to be friends, she set fire to the scarf I bought her for Christmas and left it on our front porch.”

“Whoa.” Dustin’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his skull.

“You never told us that,” Chris said.

Eduardo looked sheepish. “I was kind of embarrassed about it. I should never have led her on.”

“You kissed her once at a party,” Dustin said. “If every girl I kissed set fire to my porch-“

“You would have one very small fire from Alice, and even she kissed Mark first.”

“What?” Eduardo asked, turning to Mark.

Mark was really going to have to make Chris pay for this entire evening later.

“We were twelve.”

“Was she your first kiss?” Eduardo asked. He was trying to be sincere but Mark could see his lips aching to curve upwards.

“Nope,” Chris said before Mark could do anything about it. Mark busied himself with trying to fall through the sand right to the earth’s core. “That was Cameron Winklevoss.”

“No way!” Eduardo looked delighted.

Mark dug his fists into the pockets of his jeans. “I am going to hack into your hard drive and I am going to find all of your porn and I am going to show it to your mother.” Mark threatened through clenched teeth.

“Two of my best friends are insanely talented computer programmers, do you really think I keep porn on my hard drive?”

“I need to hear this story,” Eduardo said, sitting up.

“No you don’t.”

“We were ten years old,” Dustin said, immediately jumping into telling the story. “It was summer, Divya Narendra’s parents had invited the entire class to Divya’s birthday party at their house. We were playing truth or dare. It was Cameron’s turn.” At this point in the story Dustin lowered his voice, and began speaking much slower, as though building intensity. Mark considered throwing himself into the ocean and never surfacing again. “Cameron picked dare. Alice dared him to kiss a boy. We all expected him to choose me.” Chris snorted. “Or Chris since he was by this time already a flaming homosexual.” Chris punched him in the arm but Dustin just would not stop. “But he didn’t choose either of us, or his brother, which was again pretty shocking to all involved. No. He picked our very own Mark Zuckerberg.”

“I hate you,” Mark said, meaning it.

“Vicious lies.” Dustin smiled. Chris punched him again.

“If it makes you feel any better my first kiss was during a game of seven minutes in heaven with a girl who was twice my size and literally beat me up and stole my lunch the next day,” Eduardo offered. Mark instantly felt kind of bad because actually that did make him feel a little better.

“We need more driftwood,” Chris said suddenly. He stood up and dragged Dustin with him. Dustin began to protest but Chris raised his eyebrows and magically that somehow made Dustin follow him. Mark wished he knew how that worked.

“I wish I’d known you all back then.” Mark couldn’t be sure whether Eduardo had purposefully waited until Chris and Dustin were out of earshot or not but he suspected that he might have.

“We were pretty much the same only shorter.”

Eduardo laughed, the head-tilted-back kind of laugh. This time Mark allowed himself to look at the curve of Eduardo’s neck quickly before firmly shifting his gaze back out to the ocean again.

The sun was starting to set now and Mark was getting cold in his shorts and flip-flops. He wanted to move closer to Eduardo.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be a senior next year.”

It was said so quietly that Mark wasn’t sure that he was even meant to hear it, so he just stayed silent and carried on staring out at the ocean.

“I’m really going to miss you guys when I leave for college.”

“Yeah.” Mark still could not bring himself to look at Eduardo. The atmosphere was getting weirdly intense again, like it had when they were collecting driftwood. “You too.”

“Can I tell you something?” Mark could feel Eduardo looking at him again.

“Sure.”

“I never really had friends like this before I came here. I mean, I had friends, but it was never as easy as it is with you and Chris and Dustin. I’m kind of worried that I’ll get to college and I won’t make any friends there either.”

“Well you’ve still got a year before you really need to worry about it.” As soon as he said it Mark knew that it was the wrong thing to say. “I mean,” he tried to correct himself immediately. “Of course you’ll make friends, everyone likes you.” And it was true, he wasn’t just saying it, everyone really did like Eduardo, the only reason he didn’t have more friends at school was because he chose to hang out with Mark for some reason and no one at their school really liked Mark other than Chris and Dustin.

“It won’t be the same.” Eduardo looked down at his hands. Mark couldn’t help himself, he looked over at Eduardo’s lean, tanned fingers curling into fists and uncurling again, over and over. “You’re pretty much the best friend I’ve ever had, Mark.”

It felt like something was changing again, and Mark didn’t know what to do. If it was anyone other than Eduardo he would have brushed them off and changed the subject, and part of him wanted to do that now, but a much bigger part of him wanted to say something else entirely. Mark closed his eyes and counted to ten, hoping that that part of him would shut up and he would be able to think of something else to say.

He didn’t even realise he had spoken until Eduardo said, “what?”

Mark looked over at Eduardo. Eduardo stared back at him, his eyes huge and his mouth hanging open ever so slightly. Suddenly Mark couldn’t take it anymore. He had ruined it, he knew he had, and he couldn’t even blame Dustin or Chris because it was his own stupid fault. He pushed himself up and ignored Eduardo calling his name as he shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking back to town. At least he had the entire summer vacation to hide in his room and hope that Eduardo would forget everything that had just happened, he thought, as he tried to concentrate on the sound of his flip-flops slapping against the asphalt instead of the ringing in his ears, replaying that stupid sentence over and over again.

Mark was barely out of the parking lot before Eduardo caught up with him. Eduardo’s hand caught around Mark’s wrist and pulled him around until they were standing face to face. Mark tried to get away but Eduardo planted both of his hands on Mark’s shoulders and stared down at him. Mark stared at their feet. Eduardo was barefoot, his trousers rolled up just above the ankles. Mark’s flip-flops had holes in them because he wore them so often.

“What did you say?” Eduardo asked. His voice sounded strange. He didn’t sound mad exactly, just sort of… frantic.

“Nothing. Can we just forget it?” Mark begged, still staring down at their feet.

“No.” Eduardo replied, honestly. “Not if you said what I think you did.”

“What do you think I said?”

Eduardo sighed and shook Mark slightly. “Please Mark, for once in your life, just answer the goddamn question.”

Mark closed his eyes again. “I said…” Mark’s voice was practically a whisper and Eduardo had to lean in to hear him, which only made Mark more nervous. “I think I’m in love with you.”

For a moment Mark could feel everything good about the last year slipping out from under him. Then Eduardo’s hand moved from his shoulders to his chin, and he felt Eduardo tip his head back. Mark wanted to open his eyes but he couldn’t, he couldn’t bear to see the pity that he knew would be in Eduardo’s.

Then he felt Eduardo’s lips on his own.

It was a short, chaste kiss. Mark’s kiss with Cameron when they were ten years old had probably lasted longer. But it was real. Mark hadn’t imagined it.

“I’ve pretty much wanted to do that since I met you.” Eduardo laughed, leaning his forehead against Mark’s.

“You have?”

“Yes.” Eduardo pulled back and finally Mark looked him in the eye. “Mark, I don’t even like tuna sandwiches.”

This time it was Mark who kissed Eduardo, and it was not anywhere near as chaste as the first kiss.

They broke apart when they heard Dustin screaming.

“Don’t look at him,” Mark said, pulling Eduardo’s head back around gently so that he was looking at him instead. “If we ignore him then Chris will eventually take him away.”

Eduardo grinned down at him and Mark stared back. “What?”

“Are you sure about this?” Mark asked. Eduardo still had one hand rested on the small of Mark’s back but even with the closeness of their stance Mark could not believe that this was really happening.

“It’s the only thing I am sure about.”

“What about when you go to college?”

“Despite what Chris thinks we really don’t have to have everything fully planned already you know. We still have a whole year to think about that.”

Dustin was still screaming. He wasn’t even saying words; he was just making a lot of noise. It was really starting to annoy Mark.

“There is no way I am working in that toy shop this summer.”

“Hmm,” Eduardo agreed. “Do you think Chris will give us the summer off from packing our college applications?”

“Probably not.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Eduardo kissed Mark again. Mark could hear Dustin still screaming, and Dustin’s car playing terrible music, and Chris trying to make Dustin shut up. The sun was setting, and Eduardo’s hands held Mark close, and it was the last day of school, and summer stretched out in front of them and felt like forever.

And Mark thought that going to the beach on the last day of school was the best tradition he had ever heard.


End file.
